Rialto Theatre

1481 Broadway,

New York,
NY10036

I was the manager of this thater when CINEPLEX odeon opened it, the Warner name was used to replace the old warner that had closed at 1500Broadway…The theater at one time had a box office on Brodaway and 42nd street…the 42nd street side lead to a basement theater that showed porn…..The Broadway side 1st run. .

I was just looking at a book in the library called “1950s” by Jane Duden. Not much of a book but it does have a small shot of the Rialto taken from the south side of 42nd Street. Double bill is surprisingly conventional WE’RE NOT MARRIED and BROKEN ARROW. If this was during the original run of WE’RE NOT MARRIED that would put the year at 1952. j the k

For a short time in the late sixties-early seventies this became the Rialto West, the basement theatre continued as the Rialto II, and the Pix became the Rialto East. All three played soft-core films.

Cineplex Odeon indeed never used the basement theatre due to subway noise and the trouble they already had securing first-run product for this venue. UNCLE BUCK and a 70mm move-over of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA from the Ziegfeld were among it’s biggest hits.

Hi, my names Tim and I’m doing a PhD in 1940s horror films and horror spectatorship. I’m particularly interested in who was visiting specialist horror cinemas like the Rialto during the war. I have got hold of a lot of the relevant NYT articles and Mayer’s biography which are great sources, but if anyone has any more anecdotal info, other articles or leads on archives I would be really, really grateful to hear from you either through this or my email: .uk I’m in the UK so it’s hard for me to access NY archives at the mo, but hopefully next year I will be able to. Thanks to everyone above for some already great stuff.

Right. Warren… I can’t think of anyone better than yourself to add a listing for the original Rialto. Have you compiled enough information on the original theater to do so? Ross and Patrick will have to move the photo from the top of this page to the new one, should you decide to proceed.

An interesting article appeared in this past Sunday’s NY Times Real Estate section about the Rialto’s architect, Rosario Candela. Several photos accompany the article, including one long shot of the Rialto building. Here’s a passage regarding the theater:

That the New Yorker critic Lewis Mumford called it “unspeakable” probably hurt very little â€" in a year when the majority of new structures were one or two stories high, this was a plum project. The Reuters building is now on the site.>>

Imagine… $250,000 to construct the entire building! I wonder how that translates to 2006 dollars?

Here’s a link to the full article with photos (don’t know how long it will be active): View link

I posted this weird experience the other day on The Times Square Theatre post. Thanks EsSolero!

Ok deja vu! I was reading about a series of movies in the 60’s called “New York Roughies”, which were basically silent, overdubbed later, black & white nudie flix with little plot that played the grindhouses of 42nd street. So I rent one from NetFlix. Ok, came today, it’s called “The Ultimate Degenerate” by Michael and Roberta Findlay on Something Weird DVD. Their story alone would make a good film. So I’m watching this “masterpiece”, sorry, not my cup of tea but an interesting time capsule non the less and low and behold they have a Times Square night shot. They showed The Victoria showing Sammy Davis Jr. & Peter Lawford in “Salt And Pepper” and The Rialto on the corner of Broadway & 42nd playing “Therese and Isabelle” and then the shot turns the corner down 42nd street. What comes up first is a beautiful shot of a marquee with “That Woman” 13th Big Week playing. Finish the flick, click onto Cinema Treasures, see this post, click on EdSolero’s link and there is the same marquee shot only during the day! All in an hour’s time. Too cool.

I’ve found a page about the Rialto at the web site of a firm that sells architectural antiques. They mined the building for its relics before it was demolished. Their text claims that the building was built in 1898, and merely renovated, rather than rebuilt from the ground up (though they claim that the renovation took place in the 1920’s, which seems unlikely, as the decorative details on the exterior are surely 1930’s era streamline moderne style.) They show a small but decent photo of the theatre in its last days, and the exterior design does look as though it had been attached to an older structure.

I forgot to add: Note the message to “Stop Pay TV” on the top of the Victory Theater marquee in that same photo!!! By doing some searchin on imdb.com, I was able to determine that the Victory marquee advertises “The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill” as the main feature along with “A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine”, both of which are listed with a 1966 release and both starring one Stacey Walker – apparently a high school drop out from Texas who made these two sexploitation flicks and then high-tailed it back to Texas to finish school and resume a life of complete obscurity. The 3rd “extra” attraction appears to be called “The Casting Director” for which imdb has only sketchy information but lists as a short 6 minute striptease film released in Finland (!) in 1968.

The Eva Renzi flick at the Rialto, “That Woman” (in its “13th Big Week”) is also listed for 1966 on imdb. Perhaps the “The Casting Director” was also released in 1966 in the U.S. and that is the year of the photo?

While searching for updates on the renovation of the Times Square Theater, I came across this web page from a site about NY architecture. There are some excellent photos taken over the years of the north side of 42nd Street, including a late ‘60’s image of one of the Rialto marquees proclaiming it to be “New York’s Newest Movie Theater”. I assume this was the new Rialto 2 marquee for the auditorium created in the basement and that the identical adjacent marquee (seen in one of the other photos on the page) was the relocated entrance that led one in behind the screen of the original 1930’s era Rialto Theater auditorium.

Does anyone have an exact date when that work was done? I know the entrance was later relocated back to 7th Ave when the theater was re-dubbed the Warner for a last gasp at life in the ‘80’s.

I agree, Warren. I imagine you have sufficient information to add that page, particularly now that the site seems to be back up and running at full strength. Were both theaters listed at the same address? I know the newer Rialto also had a marquee around the corner on 42nd Street — for some reason I want to say there were two small triangular marquees right next to each other on 42nd street near the old subway entrance that was on the curb facing east… am I wrong about that? I never found my way into the Rialto during my days of frequenting the grind houses on the Duece.

This double bill must be the reason my grandfather had once told me that the Rialto Theater was where all the Universal monster movies of the ‘30’s played. I’ve seen copies of advertisements for those movies here that would evidence otherwise, but the one you posted, RobertR, vindicates my grandfather’s recollections to some degree. He’d have been 16 or 17 at the time, depending on the month it was released. He grew up in Harlem and Washington Heights, but made his way down to Times Square as often as his means allowed (“I would take the subway downtown for a nickel, kiddo!!! Then 10 cents got me a ticket and another dime some candy and a soda pop!!! The world was mine for two bits!!!”)

In April 1953 when Bwana Devil was playing at Loew’s State something called “Triorama 3 Dimension” released by Panorama films was playing here. The ad had a scantily clad beauty on a trapeze flying out of the screen over the audience. Anyone know what this was?

I remember when this theatre reopened and moved the entrance from “The Deuce” to Broadway. The only film I caught there was “A Fish Called Wanda.” Cineplex Odeon renovated it, but I don’t think it was open for very long after it reopened. Like I said, I only went there once and barely remember it being open.

There is a great example of the exotic programming, and a beautiful shot of the Rialto, in Ken Bloom’s BROADWAY: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. Next to the theater entrance is Diamond Jim’s bar. The high windows, mentioned earlier, are visible as is the bottom of a large display for Samson and Delilah. The marquee reads:

I’m familiar with some of these theaters (at least the names, since many are mentioned in the Henderson book), but am not sure about some of the others (especially with the way the names of theaters are changed so often).

Elysee: This theater sounds familiar, I even think I remember hearing “Live from the Elysee Theater” — but I can’t place it. I wonder if this was the theater on W. 58th that used to be used for Dick Clark’s “Pyramid” game show (which I never saw)?

Never heard of a few of the CBS theaters: Lincoln Sq., Monroe, Peace, Town.

A particularly exciting excursion into “the city” that I remember from my childhood was being driven by the Colonial when they were doing the “Price is Right” from there. I remember you could see a house trailer (one of the prizes) parked out front. And it seemed so amazing to me that this was the outside of the same place that I could see on my TV in Astoria!

I wonder if there is a particularly good source for this kind of info, if one wanted to look up what shows, in particular, were done from what theaters? Most of the things I’ve seen are written by authors who are not particularly interested in this info.

I think it’s really amazing to think of all the stuff that was happening in (mostly) mid-Manhattan in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, etc. The regular movie theaters, the first run movie theaters, the movie “palaces” with live shows (including famous singers, comedians and big bands), the Broadway shows, the nightclubs and hotel ballrooms and dance halls, Madison Sq. Garden, the recording studios A N D the nationally broadcast live radio and TV shows emanating from Manhattan theaters and studios (including one of the first big hit shows on radio — with “Roxy” Rothapfel — emanating from the Capitol Theater)! (The radio show with Roxy is described in Hall’s, “Best Remaining Seats.”)